Interview Reveals that RealID is a Scam

Can't believe it took me nearly 2 months for me to come across this interview. In USA Today!

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2010/05/blizzard-and-facebooks-friendly-social-networking-deal-launches-with-starcraft-ii-/1


Holy crap.  Blizzard's plans for Real ID are beyond what I even imagined.

So back at Blizzcon, Blizz announced that they were going to be using Battle.net to add cross game/faction/server communication.  This sounded great.  It would let me ask a friend logged into WoW if they wanted to come play some Starcraft . . . in the form of a whisper to their character!  Yay!

Oh wait.  Now it turns out that they weren't adding cross game/server chat as a benefit to the players.  It's simply bait to create their own social network to get a piece of the Facebook revenue pie.

Paladins Officially Overpowered, Blizzard to Kill 25s.

A highlight from Ghostcrawler's interview at Eurogamer:

Eurogamer: Is there a particular class that you thought needed an overhaul more than the others?

Greg Street (Ghostcrawler): I think the Paladin is one I'd say probably needs some of the most work, it got a lot of work in Lich King but it's still not quite there. Each individual role, the damage, healing and tanking all have problems, in some cases they're over-powered but a little simplistic in other cases, so we definitely want to address that. Without changing - you know, it's a very popular class, I think it's our most popular class at the moment, so we don't want to make it unrecognisable either.

 Told ya!

And it turns out they actually are killing 25s:*

The amount of gear in the 25 person raids will be roughly equivalent on per-person basis to the 10 person raids. One thing to keep in mind it that we don't plan to allow players to upshift from 10s to 25s, only downshift from 25s to 10s on a given week.

The statements beforehand said that 25person would have more gear per person than 10s, so I wonder if "roughly equivalent" indicates a change in plans, or just not wanting to commit yet to either "exactly the same" or "more".

The number 6 per boss was being mentioned I believe, so slightly more I guess, but anything can change in testing so I wouldn't say that it is set in stone. But we all know you guys won't call us out if anything changes during a beta, right?

So basically there will be no real incentive (gear-wise at least) to run 25 man raids.

There are rewards like badges/gold for the additional coordination involved, but we are trying to avoid having gear be the reason that one style is better than the other.

 

What a shame.  Still, the proposed system is better than the current raiding system, IMO.

*Saying they are killing 25s is hyperbole.  More emblems really will be a strong draw, especially if the difference is very large.  I expect many people will still do 25s, and with the raid ID improvements I expect my guild will farm early bosses on tuesdays with our 25-man alliance then do progression in our 10-man group using the same instance ID later in the week, for instance.  But giving more loot per person was the key to keeping a balance, and now that that's gone, 25s are going to be hurt much more badly than I had anticipated.  


The overall system is still an improvement in my eyes.

Busting the Top 9 Myths About the Cataclysm Raid Changes

Let me preface by saying that I’ve been a raider since back when BWL was the highest tier. My 40-man guild went deep into AQ40. I lived through it as that same guild transitioned to 25s. Then I ran a 25-man raiding guild for a year as the primary raid leader. Then I ran a 10-man strict guild for 2 years, and now I lead a 10-man guild that hosts a 25-man guild alliance run. I’m really, really familiar with every facet of this debate, having led both 10 and 25 man raids as well as having firsthand experience of the 40 to 25 transition.



Now let’s move on to shattering the myths about the new raid changes.


Myth 1: You have to roll against more people in 25s.

Yes, I know, it seems obvious that with 15 more people there, you’d have more competition for loot in 25s. But it’s a myth: Blizzard has stated clearly that 25s will drop more items per person. There is no room for misinterpretation: there is a 0% chance that 25s will only drop 3 or even 5 items if 10s drop 2. It seems most likely that if 10s drop 2 items per boss kill, 25s will drop 6-7. Now do some math: 6.5/25 is a BIGGER NUMBER than 2/10. Which means that even though there are more people in the 25, you will actually have a better chance at personally getting loot in the 25-man raid because so many more items drop (and there is absolutely no reason to assume we won’t see the same item more than once per kill in this case).


Myth 2: We lose too much content with the shared lockout.

All that will happen is you won’t be able to run the same instance twice a week on the same character. Do you really like rerunning the same instance over and over like you do now? Is it a good thing that 25-man raiders feel pressured to run 10 man to get double the emblems? Is it a good thing that 10-man raiders have little to no access to the 25-man run while the bigger groups can easily do both sizes in the same week?

If you have a small group of friends you like to raid 10s with outside your 25-man guild, or if you are a 10-man guild who enjoys a 25-man alliance, that’s easily solved with alts. And if you don’t have time to level an alt, then why are you asking to get to raid the same instance twice a week anyway?

Another easy solution would be to do the previous tier’s content with the other group. Hopefully Blizzard will set up the tiers so hard mode loot from the previous tier is still relevant (but not required), so you have a reason to do so.

If you just prefer to have the freedom to run the instance twice if you so choose, then you are really arguing against lockouts altogether. Why not get rid of every lockout, if having fewer lockouts is inherently better? Oh yeah, because it would break the game.


Myth 3: 10s will be too hard to balance and make class stacking a problem

This one is legitimate as a suspicion, but not a fair assumption to make with this little information. Blizzard design hasn’t been perfect, but they’ve done a pretty good job overall.

As for class stacking: we have no idea if there will be buff changes made to go along with the raid changes. There is no reason why you can’t get a good mix of buffs with any reasonable comp if they set it up right. They’ve already started spreading buffs out.

It’s OK to have reduced faith in Blizzard, but it’s too early to just assume they will blow it. And it’s especially silly to assume they haven’t thought of this yet.

Another thing to keep in mind: right now, everyone is focused on how much bigger a logistical challenge 25-mans are to organize. Well what if the unique challenge 10-man leaders face is in forming a comp that optimizes buffs, while 25-man leaders don’t have to worry about that because they will inevitably have every buff covered?


Myth 4: The devs want to kill 25s

Hah! If they did, they would have just removed them from the game, instead of going out of their way to make sure there are still incentives to do them. Would all of the work they will put into making 25-man versions of dungeons be worth it if their plan is to “stealth kill” all 25-man raids?


Myth 5: The devs will let 25s die (unintentionally)

I’ve often been cynical of Blizzard’s design choices. I can understand this impulse. But every indication is that they are committed to making whatever adjustments are necessary to make both raid sizes into viable choices that people will be interested in. There is no way they are so stupid that if they want 25s to stay alive (as we’ve already established) that they would accidentally totally fail at their goal. Blizzard makes many choices I don’t agree with, but it’s pretty rare for them to outright fail through incompetence.


Myth 6: I love 25s because they are more epic, but obviously no one else does so I’ll never get 24 others together for it after these changes

I have seen this one so many times that I could form a dozen 25-man raids out of the people who say it. It seems like tons of people just prefer the bigger raids. If anything, the response to the changes has proven that 25s will never actually die unless they are removed from the game. What surprises me is how all of these people assume that no one else feels the same way. The entire point is that you feel free to pick the format you prefer rather than having to "game the system" by doing 25s just to get worthwhile gear.

Here’s an example of this one from Dawn Moore at wow.com:

She opens her thoughts with:“I play in a high ranking 25-man guild because that is what I love to do. I don't do it for the glory, better gear, prettier mounts, or legendary items.”

Then she ends them with: “ Blizzard's proposal removes the incentive to do 25-man raids, which will kill the majority of 25-man guilds, which in turn will kill the community I come to the game for. I hate to say it, but for the first time ever I have been served a very good reason to quit the game.”

Yeah, you read that right. She really did just say that she doesn’t raid 25s for the glory or the gear, but now that the glory and gear are gone she has no incentive to do them anymore. GG, Dawn.


Remember back in TBC when everyone was doing arena because losing 10 matches a week would get you a weapon that blew away what was available to most people in a raid? Remember how so many of those people hated arena and never would have done it if they hadn’t seen that it was by far the optimal way to progress their character? Ever notice how now that the rewards are more balanced, the only people in the arenas are those who love arena, and everyone is happier?

That’s exactly what happened to 25s in Wrath. They were the only legitimate PvE progression path (10s offered gear that was a tier behind) through this entire expansion. Tons of people who preferred 10s or other activities felt compelled to do 25s because they were the only avenue to “real” gear and achievements (because 25-man guilds could just cheese the 10-man achieves, rendering them irrelevant). Now that 10 vs 25 is a real choice, and both are legitimate progression paths, those people will leave 25s.

Let me rephrase that: those people will stop doing an activity they didn’t like as much in favor of one that is more fun for them.

Yes, that’s an awful thing to have happen! How dare they have more fun while still relevantly progressing their character!!! This isn’t some game, goddammit!

If you are in a 25-man guild and you think that losing the higher tier of gear over 10s is going to cause many people to leave your guild, that means they didn’t want to be there and were only there because you were bribing them. Are you really trying to tell me you prefer the system where you bribe/blackmail your friends into having less fun? Rather than the system where everyone chooses the activity they want, and gets rewarded either way?


Myth 7: Raid leaders won’t want to lead 25s anymore.

It’s undeniable that organizing a 25-man raid and guild is way more difficult and stressful than managing a 10-man guild. But what is the incentive right now to lead a 25-man raid? A higher tier of gear? That higher tier goes out to the entire raid, not just the leaders. How come the rest of the guild gets rewarded just because the leaders work harder?

The weirdest thing about this argument is that 25-man raiders and leaders aren’t losing anything. They are, in fact, gaining. They still get the top-of-the-line gear, only in Cataclysm they get a lot more of it per boss than they did in Wrath.

If it’s not the gear, then is it the prestige? Not only will 25-man raid leaders still be competing at the cutting edge just like they do now, but their raids will have an innate advantage over 10-man raids: they will gear up faster (including much faster emblem income). If you are hardcore and want to compete for server or world firsts, you will NEED to be a 25-man raid guild because the gear advantage will help propel you to the top. You simply won’t be truly competitive if you are a 10-man guild. So the prestige may be reduced, but it is still there for 25s.

Yes, the number of 25-man guilds will be reduced, and fewer people will want to lead 25s. But it will happen not because no one will want to do 25s anymore, but because people who didn’t want to be doing 25s in the first place will finally feel free to choose not to do them while still being able to advance their character.


Myth 8: The 10 best people in my 25 man guild will just ditch the ones who are “holding them back”.

GOOD. This one boggles my mind. The statement in itself admits that 15 people in your raid are being carried and don’t deserve their victories or spoils, and it implies that the top 10 resent having to do the carrying, but don’t think they have any choice because without the other 15 people they won’t have access to the current tier of gear. I mean, seriously? That's your argument?


Myth 9: First 10 people to hit level cap will not want to wait for the other 15 to catch up and will ditch us.

What? How is this situation ANY DIFFERENT from Wrath? The first 10 people got to 80 and started doing Naxx 10. Then the guild switched over to 25s as soon as enough people were max level. In both situations, the first 10 were ahead on gear. But with 10s and 25s sharing the same difficulty, that will actually be less of a problem in Cata than it was in Wrath.

Yes, I get that the idea is that those 10 will think that using their gear will allow them to progress faster than they would in the 25 with a lower average gearscore. That sort of makes sense…if you are willfully ignoring the fact that with more drops per person on each boss in 25s, they’d make up that deficit almost immediately, and would end up far better geared in the long run.


-------------------------------------------


As you can see, pretty much every argument I’ve seen claiming this is a disaster, or a bad change overall, has giant, gaping holes in it. I was trying to figure out why it seemed to be “gutting” the fun for some people, then I read this statement by Jerome Phillips, and it all fell into place [emphasis mine]:

“The competitive raiding scene is what drove me to play WoW. I started in a casual guild in Vanilla and as I discovered and grasped the concept of a 'top' guild I worked hard to become better at the game so that I could join one. I wanted to play the best and be the best and I worked for it and I still do. It is by far the primary reason I and the majority of players in my guild play this game. When I'm not playing WoW, I play MW2, COD4, and MvC2. Highly competitive games that force you to exert relentless dominance over your competitors and instill a sense of superiority and accomplishment in achieving a win and/or goal. This same feeling is why I and people in guilds such as mine play this game…why would anybody run 25-mans in Cataclysm? The hardcore players like myself have no sense of accomplishment and no discernable way to establish who is best.”

It became clear to me: these arguments that break down under scrutiny are actually smokescreens. The reality is: a lot of 25-man raiders were doing it because they liked feeling superior to 10-man raiders.*

The saddest part is that they don’t realize how artificial that superiority was. The only people who work harder in a 25 are the leaders. Period. The average joe in those guilds does nothing more than any 10-man raider does. In fact, 10-mans are tuned similarly to 25s for their own tier of gear (go look up the health and damage numbers yourself if you don’t believe me).

Right now, 25-man raiders can pretend they are better than any given 10-man raider, but the reality is that they don’t really know who’s better. After getting screwed over for years on end, please forgive me for not feeling sorry for the people who spent those years benefitting from the system that was screwing me now that they have to face - gasp! - the prospect of a more level playing field!

If you are a competitive person, wouldn’t you rather the playing field be evened so you can find out who’s really best, rather than getting a false sense of superiority from a rigged system?

There were tons of great players who chose 10-man, but never got any respect or recognition for their skill. With the artificial signal of superiority gone, that type of 25er is in for a rude awakening: you aren’t as superior as you thought, unless you yourself were organizing the raids.

Now we have a way to really establish who is best. And guess what – some of those 10-man raiders are going to be better than you.






OK, that would have been a great way to end the post. But I just can’t do it. As Larisa reminded me with this post, everyone in this argument has feelings, and many people are reacting more out of fear that their own raid group that they have grown to call home will be torn apart. In fact, I bet the vast majority of people arguing against the change are well-meaning and simply reacting to what they perceive as a threat to their current raiding group.

Of course no one likes that, and it’s understandable that perfectly reasonable people would be unhappy about it and be searching for way to convince others that it is a bad change when really they just don’t want to see their group broken up. In the end, I still hold the opinion that the old system was inherently broken and unfair and that the new system is a massive improvement to the game overall that must be done. But I extend my truly heartfelt condolences to anyone who loves the guild that they built under the broken system and might now see their friends torn apart by an improvement to the game.




*I said “a lot” I did not say “every” or even “most”. Please don’t assume I was talking about you unless you actually suspect you are that type of person.

Quote of the Day:

"I just hope that Blizzard is using some of that extra money to speed up their expansion development cycle, because *that* is where they are losing customers from right now."

-Tobold

Never thought I'd be afraid of a sparkly pony

First off, this hilarious video by Totalbiscuit:



I have verified -at much risk to life and limb - that the reference to homosexuals is not anti-gay, but just a statement that the sparkly pony is "faaaabulous!"


Anywho, quick statement on the horse: overall, I find the insanely high demand for the thing terrifying given it's price.

I am also kind of sickened by the (frankly unecessary) marketing ploys they're using to artificially increase demand.

But it doesn't scare me for the reasons you may think. I'm not worried Blizzard is going to compromise the integrity of the game by selling gear or achievements. I don't think Cataclysm will be an RMT-palooza.

But I am worried that the millions of dollars they just made in one day in return for a few hours of work by an artist and a programmer is going to . . . skew their priorities a bit. After all, they are a for-profit company, and in the end their goal is to make the most money, not make the best game. Making such good games is just a good way to make money.

Companies are meant to make money, and there is nothing wrong with that. I don't begrudge Blizzard the millions they made yesterday at all. Obviously, hundreds of thousands of people thought $25 was a fair price for a mount. I'm not even criticizing them. The whole thing was generally a win for everyone all around: people who wanted the mount for that price got it, Blizz made a ton of cash, and no one who didn't want the mount is hurt by the whole thing.

Or are they? (dun dun DUNNNNNN)

The only thing I'm worried about is a priority shift. Now that Blizzard has invested so much in laying the groundwork of creating a game that so many people love so much that hundreds of thousands of them are willing to pay half the cost of an entirely new video game just for a new graphic on their mount - quite an accomplishment in itself - what is their motivation to keep investing those resources into polishing the rest of the game? Are the i's going to be dotted and t's crossed anymore? Let's look at a hypothetical (and likely hyperbolic) example just to get my point across.

From Blizzard's point of view:

Option 1: Release an innovative, deep dungeon full of new art, cool lore, and great music, voice acting, and sound effects (think Ulduar). Make a number of new models and animations.

Option 2: Take half of those artists off of making the dungeon and have them design a few cool pets and mounts for the store instead. Phone in the dungeon with stale graphics and mechanics, very few bosses, and with every single enemy model fully recycled (think ToC).

Let's say both of those options cost the same amount of money. Option 1 has an indefinable value in keeping customers interested and excited about the game. But ToC showed that releasing a crap dungeon with no new assets will have little to no effect on subscriptions numbers (the main effect is lowering overall excitement for your game, which may eventually lead to a noticeable reduction in profits).

Option 2 will make you 3 million dollars in one day.

As a for-profit company, which of those two options do you pick?

That's why I'm worried that the rest of the game will start being phoned in. We'll see fewer new character models as the artistic resources get redirected towards filling the store. I'm scared that the game, overall, will get worse because spending those resources on pets instead is so much more financially attractive.


/sadface

Cataclysm Class Population, or "World of Paladins 2: Now With More Paladins"

As promised, here I am bringing out my Crystal Ball of Dubious Accuracy and telling you what I think will happen to the class populations in WoW based on the design intent evident in the class previews that were released over the past few weeks. I consider class population balance to be crucially important to WoW, and I find it shocking how little Blizzard developers seem to consider it when balancing classes. But I'll get into that in more detail later.


Current Populations:

Before going into predictions, it will be useful to look at the current class populations statistics. Despite the prevalence of max-level alts to switch to, the class of each player's current "main" will likely be the biggest deciding factor in which class they play in Cataclysm. There will need to a strong reason to switch, especially since mounts, pets, and achievements are non-transferrable (something that I'm almost begging Blizzard to change, even if it's for a fee). For instance, I have not been willing to begin to entertain the thought of switching mains away from my Death Knight because of his Rusted Proto Drake . . . plus all the pets (many impossible or horrendously difficult to replace), mounts (including a 12k gold motorcycle), and achievements.

All of this data considers only level 80 characters.

Right now, Armory Data Mining puts the classes at:



To back up that data with a second source, here are the likely-less-accurate numbers from the Warcraft Census:


I'm going to assume that a comparably large percentage of these level 80 DKs are not mains, given the high DK starting leve and the "shiny and new" factor. I don't see any reason to consider any of the other classes less likely to be mains or more likely to be alts.

In summary, there are way too many goddamned Paladins.


Role representation is also a concern. Basing my estimates off of the percentage of all Paladins and Warriors who specced Prot, we can assume that roughly 7% of the population is a DK or Druid tank. Add on the prot tanks, and only 16% of the population is a tank.

20% of a 5-man or 10-man is a tank. On the other hand, 12% of a 25-man raid is a tank. That means there are too many tanks for 25-man raids, but not even close to enough for 5-man or 10-man content. This indicates that Blizzard needs to balance 25-man raids to include more tanks, and if that's not enough, take more steps to increase the tank population.

The problem is similar for healers: only 18% of all level 80's heal. Sure, you only need 20% for 5-mans, but raids need about 25%.

No matter how you look at it, there is a healer shortage, and a massive tank shortage outside of 25-man raids.

Pure DPS classes have nosedived in Wrath, filling out the bottom of the population list. Overall, they make up 32% of the population, vs 34% who are hybrids playing a DPS class. It seems clear that the community perceives the benefits of hybrids, especially with dual-spec available, as far outweighing the unevenly-implemented "hybrid tax". Unless something is explicitly done to prevent it, I believe this trend will continue.

Take-away points:

• 25-mans must be rebalanced to require more tanks.
• Tank and healer populations need to be increased
• Pure dps classes need to be be more appealing for dps relative to hybrid dps classes
• We need fewer plate dps and more leather dps
  

In predicting class populations, it also makes sense to consider the current popularity of each race. It stands to reason that many players will be loathe to leave their favorite race, or consider race as a factor when considering a new main.


Armory Data Mining:


Warcraft Census:


Humans and elves are predominant. The most physically imposing races come next, as does the "darkest" race. The ugliest and smallest races take up the rear. Apparently, the type of people who play WoW a lot want to roleplay as something beautiful, big and strong. Whodathunkit?

Worgen will be explosively popular. They will hit the ultimate trifecta heretofore untouched by other races: they will be the Shiny New Thing, and the "darkest" thing, and also be able to look exactly like the most popular race at the drop of a hat, all at the same time! Everyone will make a Worgen. But few will make a Worgen their new main before they are opened up for race changes from existing characters. So 3 months after Cata release, they will be few and far between at 80. 6 months after and beyond, they will eventually overtake most other races, just as the Blood Elves have since BC.

Goblins are both ugly and short. Being shiny, new, and highly anticipated will help them, but they will never exceed even Orcs in population.


Rating Each Class Preview

So how did each class preview pan out? Look! I rate them from 1-10! Based on how much they would make people want to main that class in Cata!


Death Knight

Blood became the dedicated tanking tree, which is a good change but won't help the numbers. Rune system change is great, but a bit under-the-hood, so would only lead to modest population uptick. New abilities are extremely lackluster.

Rating: 4


Druid

Almost every change addresses something wrong with druids. They are getting a few cool abilities, more buttons to push as bear, an easier cat rotation, eclipse is getting overhauled, their heals are staying largely intact and benefiting from crit and haste, and there are no clear nerfs. Wow.

Rating: 8


Hunter

They are getting Focus instead of mana, which will push away almost no one and draw a few more in. The increased pet stable will be a big draw. Their rotation is getting less frantic. Annoyances like Ammunition are going away. Pets are getting increased raid utility. And the new abilities are very exciting.

Rating: 6


Mage

Bloodlust, only better. Since BL isn't going away, keen players will find the buff to be a big draw to a mage or shaman. Other new abilities are OK, but there are very few mechanics changes.

Rating: 5


Paladin

Are you fucking serious? Cool new abilities (one of them is literally "flashy") that all have utility in both PvE and PvP, easier buffing, and Paladins become the only class with an exclusive buff (Kings, though GC started a rumor that Druids might get it).

Rating: 9.5


Priest

Strong mechanic improvements, and flashy, cool new spells like Life Grip (though Life Grip will turn some people off because it gives them extra responsibility). The changes should rope in some people who would otherwise be turned off, but priest populations will always remain relatively stable.

Rating: 7


Rogue

The combo point system is improved (that system was the biggest annoyance with rogues) and survivability is going up, while stunlocks are nerfed. Smoke Bomb is super-flashy. Rogue population will go up among raiders and down among gankers.

Rating: 6


Shaman

Lots of flashy, cool new spells, but little in the way of mechanic changes or real improvements.

Rating: 8


Warlock

Shard overhaul, decent new spells, and green fire. A few nice mechanics changes.

Rating: 7


Warrior

Awesome fix to rage. Heroic Strike going away as an on-next-attack spam button. New abilities are booooring. No news on exactly how they will be improved to be brought in line with the other tanks on ease of aoe threat, or how the other tanks will be nerfed (yes, vague things have been said so far, but not enough concrete stuff to bank on).

Rating: 2



Healer and Tank changes:

One last thing to consider before we get to the predictions are the major changes being made to healers, and to a lesser extant tanks, as a whole.

The healing change to make them care about mana is a great design idea, if I understand it correctly. We won't know how good it is until we play it, but it sounds like we won't need to keep people topped off at all, instead doing triage based on leaving some people who aren't in danger at medium health. It follows that someone at half-health isn't likely to die in the next few seconds unless they are staying in the fire.

But the healing change is a major turn-off for healers. No matter how much PR GC tries to do, the bottom line is that it sounds like a nerf, and sounds like more work (even if it's not going to turn out that way). What GC needs to do ASAP is release a video demonstrating what healing will be like in Cataclysm, and showing very clearly why it will actually be more fun and less stressful.

As Gevlon and others have pointed out, if you make healer mana the limiting factor in a raid's or group's success, then you give everyone even more reason to blame the healers. Even if it isn't the healer's fault, the social perception will be that it's easy to blame the healer. And Blizzard is continually thinking of this game too much as a game system when they should be thinking about it as a social environment a lot more. Hire Tobold to be your social engineer!

Meanwhile, the tanking changes that make threat scale better with gear are broadly appealing, though talk of making AoE tanking more difficult will likely be misunderstood by some as a nerf.


Predictions:

Now that that's out of the way, here are my predictions, from lowest to highest, of populations percentages for each class at 85 about 3 months after the release of Cataclysm.


Shaman: 6.5%

Bad news, shamans. No amount of Healing Rain can save you. Mages are getting Bloodlust, and none of the most popular races can be your class, including Worgen (and lots of Draenei players will switch to Worgen). The only new Shaman will be Dwarves and Goblins, two of the least popular races. The mana change will be perceived as a nerf, hurting the representation of healers of every class. Totems will remain an annoyance, and you still won't have escape mechanisms, and Enhance will still play like a weaker Ret Paladin. Sorry.


Death Knight: 7.5%

Yeah, you read that right. Biiig cut. Most people will not level their 80 DK as their main in Cata. Paladin popularity will hit this class the worst, but the unexciting new abilities and the loss of freshness won't help either. Expect a good number of Worgen DKs who want an easy way to get a Worgen to 80 early, but few Goblin DKs, as most players will want to roll a Goblin only to see the new starter experience. The appeal of seeing the new 1-60 content will cut into the number of DKs, since they start at 58 (once they get out of their starter zone).


Warlock: 7.5%

Warlocks will see a tiny increase due to their improvements, especially the soul shard system. They will be hurt by the lack of a new pet and what I expect will be a surge in mage popularity.


Priest: 8%

Priest population should stay pretty steady. More than any other class, priests attract a certain type of person, and there is nothing in the preview to suggest they will lose players. Nevertheless, there will be a sizeable drop due to the mana change to healers driving away many players from healing classes. That is the main reason I have them rated so low. The popularity of Druids, especially as Worgen, will also take a bite out of the Priest population.


Rogue: 8.5%

This is also a modest increase for rogues. They will be popular Worgen and Goblin classes, and more popular as raiding mains because of their improved combo point system. They will lose some people who are PvP fans.


Hunter: 9%

I expect a signifiant increase in the hunter population. The biggest factor here is that many of the most popular races can already be hunters, as can both of the new classes, and even humans and undead will be able to hunt in Cata. Also, the improved pet system and the addition of focus will attract more people than it drives away, noticeably increasing the hunter population. I expect them to increase in PvP popularity as well as the focus turns away from Arena and toward BGs.


Mage: 10%

A class with Bloodlust, except it can be played by all of the most popular races, including humans, worgen, and now both kinds of elves? Buy stock in this class, folks.


Warrior: 11%

I originally thought that the boring new abilities in the Warrior class preview would hurt them. And it will hurt them slightly. But no one will notice while rolling their Worgen and Blood Elf warriors and enjoying the fixed rage mechanic, now will they? A perennial popular class will only get more popular.


Druid: 15%

And here we come to the biggest problem. What we've heard about Cataclysm so far has given us no indication that the value of hybrids will decrease. Players as a community are already picking up on this, which explains why the current druid population is so high for a class that can only be played by 2 races and can't see it's own hard-earned armor 90% of the time. As a 3-role hybrid, and the only one that can do both melee and ranged dps, you have a recipe for popularity in a land of dual-specs and little to no downsides to playing a hybrid. GC even hinted that Druids might be the only other class to get Blessing of Kings!

They will also remain the strongest healers once Paladins lose dominance of tank-healing, kitty dps will be easier, bear will be more interesting, and moonkin will finally get a non-spec-breaking version of Eclipse. Plus, the new abilities are pretty cool. Add in that fucking Worgen can be Druids, and iiiit's ovaaaaah for most of the other classes.


Paladin: 17%

The saddest thing about how giant this number is? The fact that it's such a small increase over the current number! The class is getting some great new abilities and almost no clear nerfs. Holy Paladins will become more popular as their toolbox increases and they get raid healing capabilities. Retribution Paladins will pick up a number of refugees from other dps classes, particularly DKs and Warriors, who have been watching them in jealousy for months now. And though there are hints that Prot Paladins will be brought back into line with other tanks, it's hard to dispel the long-running perception of them as the best tanks, the easiest to play, and the ones with the highest and most dependable aoe threat. Plus, they certainly won't be the weakest tanks, and if they are, you can just play dps or healing instead!

The only saving grace here is that Worgen can't play them - though Tuaren will be added to the list, which can only increase their popularity.


Yes, I am predicting that about a third of all players will main either a druid or paladin. Have fun forming raids in 2011, kids!


-----------------------------------------------------


So what does Blizz need to do between now and Cataclysm to prevent a disasterous healer shortage and gross class imbalance?

1) Change the healing mana "nerf" to make it more palatable.

2) Better PR for the increased importance of mana for healers and the cleanse changes. We need video demonstrations of how the game will be changed to compensate and keep these changes from being nerfs, and we need some social engineering changes in the game mechanics to take some of the responsibility for failure away from healers, at least in the public perception. Perception matters.

3) Increase the "hybrid tax" in some way so that players don't flock to Paladins and Druids for being the only 3-role classes in the game (and top-tier at some of those roles at the same time!). It doesn't need to be limited to the current (failing) damage tax. Change around buffs so that hybrids provide fewer of them, rather than more, compared to pures. Make sure hybrids have the weakest CC, and make it very well-known to the WoW population how much CC will actually matter - with demonstrations. Give some extra utility to pure and 2-role classes that the 3-role classes will lack. Continue to suppress the druid population by keeping them from seeing their gear in bear/cat/moonkin. Stop letting Paladins be so goddamn powerful while being so easy to play.

4) Allow Worgen and Elves to be Shaman, and simplify totems even more.

Death Knight Cataclysm Changes

Why are we seeing so many PvP-only abilities in these class previews? None of them so far moreso than the Death Knights:

New Death Knight Abilities

Outbreak (level 81): Outbreak infects the target with both Frost Fever and Blood Plague at no rune cost. This ability allows death knights to apply diseases quickly when they are switching targets or when their diseases have been dispelled.

Necrotic Strike (level 83): Necrotic Strike is a new attack that deals weapon damage and applies a debuff that absorbs an amount of healing based on the damage done. For context, imagine that the death knight can choose between doing 8,000 damage outright with a certain ability, or dealing 6,000 damage and absorbing 4,000 points in incoming heals with Necrotic Strike -- the burst is smaller, but a larger overall amount of healing would be required to bring the target back to full health.

This ability is meant to bring back some of the old flavor from when death knights could dispel heal-over-time (HoT) effects. It also gives the class a bit more PvP utility without simply replicating a Mortal Strike-style effect.

Dark Simulacrum (level 85): The death knight strikes a target, applying a debuff that allows the death knight to copy the opponent's next spell cast and unleash it. Unlike Spell Reflection, Dark Simulacrum does not cancel the incoming spell. In general, if you can't reflect an ability, you won't be able to copy it either.

Dark Simulacrum will work on nothing in raids. It's purely a PvP ability. Don't DKs already have enough defensive cooldowns in PvP? And ranged attacks? Do they really need a weakened version of Spell Reflect (OK, well it's actually balanced since DKs don't have to switch to a shield).

The same with Necrotic Strike. There will be maybe 1-2 bosses with self-heals over the entire expansion where NS might be worth casting. But really, it's purely for PvP. Sigh.

That leaves Outbreak. Great for both PvP and raids. I love it. Reading it first made me excited about the preview, but I was quickly disappointed as I read the other abilities. Switching targets will no longer be nearly as painful, and Outbreak is especially a boon for tanking, giving us a way to react to situations where we don't have runes available in an emergency. It will also make raiding rotations more interesting, because on single target fights you will likely be replacing IT/PS with Outbreak every 5th cycle. It will definitely raise the skill cap for the class.


The skill cap will also go up from the biggest change to the class: the new rune system.

Right now, DKs must spam their abilities the exact moment a rune comes off cooldown. Every second the rune is off cooldown and unused, that resource is going to waste. This leaves so little room in DK rotations that I often find myself wasting RP because I can't afford to take the time to Death Coil.

In Cataclysm, each of the 3 flavors of rune (blood, frost, and unholy) will recharge one at a time. So, for instance, if you use both blood runes, one of them will refill, then the other will refill (right now they both refill at the same time). The benefit to the change is that the first blood rune isn't going to waste if you don't use it immediately. It doesn't start being wasteful until both of them refill.

This will slow down DK rotations a bit, and all abilities will be adjusted to hit harder to compensate. I'm happy because this fits more with my idea of a DK . . . it always seemed wrong that my specials sometimes did less damage than my white swings.

With the rotation slowing down, and the wiggle-room before runes go to waste increasing massively, the devs get some space to add other abilities to the rotation, make runic power more valuable, and offer rune regen (through haste) and RP regen as useful bonuses. DKs as a class will be much more flexible. The change is great.

If it still doesn't make sense (I found it wicked confusing at first), GC gives a good example to clarify:

"I'll try another comparison. Imagine that all rogue abilities cost 100 energy. They have to wait until they get 100 energy, and then immediately use an attack so that they aren't wasting future energy. That's how DKs play now, except they have 6 runes to watch. Now imagine the same rogue except all his abilities cost 50 energy. If he hits an attack when he has 60 energy, then 50 is consumed but he has 10 energy still left and a head start on the next attack. That's the way we want DKs to play.

If that still doesn't make sense, then focus on what the experience will be, which is that you'll have more breathing room in your rotation and won't have to hit a button every single GCD. If you don't use a strike the second it's available, that's more okay because the extra tank will store extra rune resources rather than just wasting it. You'll still be hitting a lot of buttons though."

As for the talent trees and masteries: they are strong, but uninspiring. I mean, disease damage? I am thankful that Frost will be viable for both 2-handers and Dual-Wield, because I enjoy both playstyles greatly, but haven't been able to try frost lately because I love my Shadow's Edge too much.

----------------------------------------------------

Much like the Warrior preview, the DK preview offered a number of "under-the-hood" mechanics changes, but little in the way of "flash" or excitement. Even though the changes are unequivocally good - and point to some great design minds working at Blizzard - I can't help but be disappointed.

Though, it's only fair, as DKs are the newest class, and already had the most pizazz. But with DK numbers declining already as the freshness wears off, I wonder if mechanic changes will be enough to hold people. I anticipate a lot of players will be drawn back to their DKs because the old inflexibility of the rune system turned them off. We'll wait and see as the other previews are released.

Starcraft 2 pricing announced. P.S.: We're screwed.

The physical manifestation of Starcraft 2 was revealed today. You can get the standard edition for $60, or the collector's edition for $100. A bit on the pricey side, but not unexpected.

What is unexpected:

"Digital copies of the game will be available to download through Battle.net "shortly after release" of the retail Sku."

Join the 21st century, Blizzard. Let us download the game on Day 1.

Wait, I shouldn't be complaining to Blizz. I should be complaining to Activision, since they are clearly in full control now. I'm assuming this decision was made by the marketing and sales departments because there is some advantage to forcing Day 1 buyers into the stores (whether a deal with Gamestop or unwillingness to pay for the bandwidth necessary to handle the demand).

What makes me absolutely sure that Bobby Kotick is at the helm are a few other little surprises in the collector's edition:

1) A WoW pet. Seriously? It makes sense from a marketing standpoint, but damn it's exploitative.

2) "Exclusive Battle.net downloadable content, including special portraits for your Battle.net profile, decals to customize your units in-game, and a..."

I cut that statement off because the last part deserves it's own number. Decals to customize units in-game? That just screams value-added content to me. Pay $100 for the base game, then get on the Microtransaction Express and keep shipping your money directly to Blizzard so they can use it on an Orc statue and paying Bobby Kotick and shareholders rather than using it on development! But that pales in comparison to:

3) "...and a visually unique version of the terran Thor unit"

...

WHAT?!?!?!

Are you kidding me?!? You're going to be able to pay to make your individual units look different?

Blizzard's motto is very quickly shifting from "when it's ready" to "anything for a buck".

Customer . . . loyalty . . . failing . . .

Everyone who believed the PR saying the Activision merger wouldn't change Blizzard: please accept this bottle of ketchup, which should make it less unpleasant for you to eat your words.

Warrior Class Preview: Boring

As Spinks rightly points out, players will be using the Cataclysm previews and beta to select which class to "main" up to 85. I know I won't be switching from my DK because I couldn't give up the Rusted Proto, but such previews have influenced my choices in the past and clearly have a noticeable effect on the WoW population. Honestly, I'd chalk up the lack of Rogues throughout this entire expansion as about 80% due to how unexciting their new abilities and talents seemed way back in Wrath beta. The other classes were just too shiny. The other 20% is that Paladins, Warriors, and Death Knights were equally strong melee classes that could also tank/heal (and many Rogue players switched to DKs because they were the cool new shiny), drawing Rogue players (including me) away.

Now the low numbers of Warlocks? 90% due to their outlook before Wrath hit, easily.

What each class gets going into the expansion defines what class distributions will be like for at least the following two years.

Once all the previews are here, I'll whip out my infamous Crystal Ball of Totally Dependable Except When I Guess Wrong Predictions and tell you what I expect the class distribution to look like a month after Cata is released. In the meantime, I have to comment directly on the Warrior preview that was released this morning:

How utterly disappointing. Yes, the rage change is perfectly executed, but it's a mechanics change. It's got no "cool" factor. The new abilities aren't exciting. The talent tree changes aren't exciting. Heroic Leap is kind of cool, but it's not enough to carry the entire class.

Based on this preview, I will be shocked if there is not a mass exodus from the warrior class come Cataclysm. There will still be many who love the flavor of the class and enjoy their warrior, of course.

And I'll likely still go forward with my Worgen Warrior plans - Titan's Grip Werewolf, HOOOOOOO!

I don't expect Warriors to die out at all. But I expect the population to cut in half, going from one of the most populous classes to one of the least.

Death Knights get a "Prot" talent tree

Jiggawhozawhuuu?

Cataclysm class changes are coming thick and fast, and will be relentless through this week. To avoid overshadowing the rest of the DK changes, Ghostcrawler announced today that Death Knights would no longer be able to tank using all of the three talent trees, and would instead be getting a "Protection" talent tree, just like Warriors and Paladins.

This tree would be called "Blood" and the tanking abilities from the other 2 trees would be consolidated therein. This seems to set up Unholy as the 2-handed dps tree and Frost as the dual-wield dps tree.

I'm definitely surprised. We'll have to wait to see how the implementation goes down. With what little information we have, I'm firmly against this. One of the things I enjoyed about my DK was being able to switch specs as I got bored (or based on what type of content I was doing), and the flavor and playstyle of my character would change with it, while still allowing me to tank or dps. For instance, in Ulduar, I basically had to use Blood as my tanking spec because it was helpful on Iron Council and pretty much required on hard-mode Vezax. But lately I've been able to play Frost as my tanking spec because it is great for aoeing down easy heroics while I farm emblems: DnD, glyphed Howling Blast, Blood Boil, take a nap.

From the dps side, the flexibility of DK specs has helped keep my interest as I've been using a different spec at each tier. The transformation of the Frost tree into the DW tree dampened this somewhat, but there were still two distinct options for 2-handed dps. Specs are going to be a lot more limited going forward, and that's a bad thing.

But that's probably the point: balancing DKs has likely been hellish when they essentially have 6-7 talent trees while most other classes have 3, especially when tweaking one DPS tree influences a tanking tree, and vice versa. And they needed a solution to DK masteries, since the new system of investing points in a tree couldn't reasonably yield both DPS and tanking stats.

Honestly, I expected a more ingenious solution to the problem from the Blizzard designers (not that I could think of one). I'm disappointed.

But it's not the end of the world! I'll still enjoy my DK, and who knows what other changes they have in store. We'll find out tomorrow. Being the most recently-designed class, I'm expecting the new DK talent trees to be the most similar to their current incarnations compared to the older classes. But I'm very excited to see the promised revamp of the rune system to make it more flexible. Tanking can get frustrating as a DK when you really need some runes to react to an emergency and they just aren't available, and DPS has become all about optimizing rune usage, making DK dps a lot like Paladin DPS (where you are locked down by Global CoolDown limitations), except we also have to keep track of resources while Paladins just have to hit the right attack as soon as the GCD is up (not a dig at Paladins!).

It should be an exciting week for WoW players.

Catclysm Stat Changes Revealed

Eyonix posted this afternoon on the official WoW forums with a preview of the upcoming changes to item statistics in Cataclysm. Most of it was in line with previous announcements and expectations, but there were a few nice surprises in there:

Defense is being removed from the game entirely. Tanking classes should expect to become uncrittable versus creatures just by shifting into Defensive Stance, Frost Presence, Bear Form, or by using Righteous Fury.

Awesome. We'd heard about this before, but not simply from shifting stances! Defense was always a confusing stat, and I never understood why it was on gear. It has always been a major barrier to entry for tanks. Making their gearing much more straightforward will help the game a lot, and hopefully shorten LFD queues. It also makes it viable for a geared dps to handle tanking duties in a pinch, or using an incomplete patchwork of dps and tanking gear while gearing up.

Weapon Skill - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.

OMG BEST CHANGE IN WOW HISTORY!!!!!1! No more grinding for hours to level a weapon skill!!!!! No more randoms in LFD skilling up their new weapon during my dungeon runs! YES!! With this, we watch some of the last vestiges of Tigole's World of Everquest fall away, and it's undoubtedly for the better.

Gems - We are changing the gem colors of a few stats as a result of these adjustments. For example, Hit is likely to be blue instead of yellow.

What? Blue gems not being useless to dps? Where do I sign up?

Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.

Intriguing. Does this mean most people will never cap out hit and expertise? Or will it just be a crappy implementation where most of our stats are wasted when going back to older content? For instance, if I have 8% hit cap for Deathwing, will I be overcapped at like 20% for the boss two tiers below him?

Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.

Crap. That's gonna hurt. Hopefully this patch won't apply until just before Cata. Or it will be accompanied by talent tree changes that make me no longer love armor pen so much. Who knows?


The only downside to this post is that it will renew all the wishful-thinkery about Cata's release date. Just because they posted some more info does not mean Cata "must be mere months away!" Enjoy free epics from the Ruby Dragonshrine until at least October, everyone!

Blood Princes 10-man

This is a Public Service Message:

Blood Princes, the first boss in the blood wing of Icecrown Citadel, is currently buggy in 10-man mode. There have been a torrent of reports of the bugs on the WoW general forums, but no official blue response yet. The bugs boil down to:

• The bosses seem to be doing the same amount of damage in 10-man as in 25. Obviously, this is a problem when your 25-man group has 6-7 healers and your 10-man group has 2-3.
  


• The purple orbs that are supposed to protect your shadow tank from Empowered Shadow Lance are not working as intended. The ESL does around 90k damage unmitigated, but each orb reduces that by roughly half, so with 4 orbs the tank should only take around 11k. I witnessed multiple wipes where a tank with 4 or more took 22k hits, and many others on the forums corroborated this. I verified this both visually and with multiple players' combat logs, on at least 5 different attempts. They aren't working right.
  


• You have a 50/50 chance that the shadow boss will become empowered around the time the 3rd shadow orb spawns, making it impossible to have the 4 orbs that would make him safe and healable without big cooldowns.
  


• Reports of damage done by the Princes vary. It may be different for different raid groups. Some report very low damage, some incredibly high.

It's clear something is wrong with the tuning of the 10-man version. Many 10-man strict guild especially are reporting problems, while 25-man guilds that overgear the instance tended to be able to beat the encounter, but uniformly found it much more difficult in 10-man compared to 25-man, which I'm pretty sure is not intended. Right now these guys are harder on 10-man than the endwing plague boss Putricide, which isn't intended, especially when they are reportedly a pushover in 25-man mode. We are executing the fight perfectly, and managing the other mechanics without a hitch, but every attempt ends with the shadow tank being insta-gibbed, either with 4+ protective orbs, or before 4 orbs could even spawn.

Lending more credence to this bug are the similar fixed bugs with Marrowgar (doing 25-man damage in 10-man) and Putricide (25-man aoe ticking for 10-man amounts). It looks like they simply did it again. Yet another in a chain of bugs that are stifling progress for 10-man-only guilds like mine.

Hopefully Blizzard will stop worrying about the resilience changes long enough to fix this encounter soon.


UPDATE: Well that was quick! Daelo responds:

Blood Prince Council

• Prince Keleseth will no longer melee players. So if you get knocked into Keleseth or happen to move by him, he won't swipe in between his casts and kill a non-tank.
• The first Shadow Resonance should appear earlier in the fight, which will allow the Keleseth tank to have more orbs on him or her if Keleseth is empowered second instead of third. We didn't want which Blood Prince was empowered second to be a major element of the difficulty in the fight.
• We reduced the melee damage for the Princes by 10% for the 10 player difficulty. They were doing less damage than the 25 player before the hotfix, but this change lowers the damage further.
• Empowered Flames will now run out of power after shooting fewer firebolts in the 10 player difficulty. We did not change the initial impact damage.

I'm on Twitter now, and the "controversy" of Spitfires' guest post on Matticus

So yeah, now that I got a new smartphone that I brag about at every opportunity, I've joined the 2008 and started twatting. You can follow me on Twitter:

@EscHatch

I always poo-poo'd Twitter, but I'm discovering that you miss out on a lot of the interwebs conversation if you aren't there. For instance, I saw an intriguing twoot by prominent WoW blogger Matticus this morning:

matticus I sealed off that "controversial" guest post on my blog. Tired of moderating shit and tired of being accused I do stuff "for the hits".

The guest post he is referring to was by We Fly Spitfires, and it was indeed controversial. It was titled: "Tanks and Healers Should Get the Biggest Rewards". And boy, am I sad that there is controversy over that statement. Of course they should get some extra reward, because when compared to DPS, they are in higher demand, have more responsibility and harder jobs, and are really the crux of the group. Which is basically what Spitfires said.

I say this as a DPS who will top anyone but Jong on the meters while not pulling aggro or breaking CC or standing in bad shit, while leading the raid. When it comes down to it, I am the first to admit that no matter how leet my superstar dps is, I'm just a piece of interchangeable meat compared to the tank.

And sadly, speaking that truth is where Spitfires' post went wrong. Instead of the comments section becoming a reasonable debate about the differences between the roles and how we can incentivize the less popular roles, it became an angry flamefest in response to a few choice phrases he used to (coughaccuratelycough) describe DPS in most situations:

“But the DPS? They’re just meat in the room.”

“DPS are a dime a dozen.”

“DPS can just be picked up randomly as required.”

“I’ve got nothing against DPS. It’s fun and there’s nothing wrong with that but they simply don’t deserve the equality of rewards.”

I think he's absolutely right, (especially in the dungeon finder) except when it comes to the most high-end of raids, or in the case of absolutely terrible dps. But the bottom line is: your raid or group can handle one bad dps. Your raid or group is going nowhere with a bad tank or healer. Unless you are in complete denial of reality, the fact that there is a difference in the value of tanks and healers compared to dps, no matter how good the dps, is indisputable.

But petty little egos must be fed, so the the fragile, defensive dps players must come out and express how insulted they are. Bad dps! Bad! Back to the LFG Q with you!

Spitfires asked the right question, but tragically in the wrong way (not that I would do any different). Tanking and healing are more important than dps while requiring more responsibility and skill. And there is a shortage of both. DPS, it is in your best interest to encourage people to play tanks and healers at every turn. Kiss their feet. Massage their aching shoulders. Buy them presents. Take off your robe and wizard hat if you have to.

Just stop pretending like you matter as much as they do.


Signed,

Your fellow dps who never has to wait for a tank or healer because he knows how to treat them.



PS: Just saw Rohan's thoughtful post on this issue. In light of it, I'd like to clarify that I don't think there is any "moral superiority" to tanking or healing, which is probably the perception that rubbed dps the wrong way. I am referring only to their higher value due to scarcity, and the increased personal responsibility of those roles.

Rohan makes a good point that at high level play, dps matter more and more. For instance, my guild runs two ICC 10 runs a week (one of them contains some geared alts and friends of the guild). The only real difference between the groups is the gear and experience level of the dps. Group 1, full of our best dps, pushes progression content while our second group has to actually try Saurfang twice before he goes down, can't beat Festergut, etc. And those dps aren't bad by any stretch, they just aren't the extraordinary deliverers of beatdowns that the other group is.

BUT - and that's a capital but for those of you paying attention - I'd argue that a tank or healer still has more personal individual responsibility, even in the highest-end raids, simply based on numbers. We as DPS are less important because there are 17-19 of us. There are 2-3 tanks and 5-8 healers (in my case in 10-mans its 5 vs. 2 and 3, a similar ratio). No matter how much great dps can "carry" a tank at the high end, it still won't fully make up for the responsibility of being part of a smaller group.

Plus, they are still rarer - but I would never argue that they are morally superior. I do argue that they should be pampered and incentivized so they become less rare.

WoW Radio Closing Its Doors . . . Sort Of.

My favorite podcast provider announced a few days ago that it will be closing down. WCRadio.com, affectionately known as WoW Radio, has been around for 6 years, providing a centralized, united source of WoW media, flagshipped by their fleet (wait, that metaphor made no sense...) of weekly WoW podcasts, and accentuated by events like their exhaustive Blizzcon coverage and WoW Idol, a showcase of WoW-themed music created by fans*

But thankfully, WoW Radio won't really be gone. Each of its nearly a dozen podcasts will be continuing on their own, and the wcradio.com site will become a hub to help us keep track of where they've gone. Though my favorite podcasts will continue, and perhaps even be improved now that the overhead of running the entire organization is gone, I can't help but feel, with a twinge of sadness, that this is the end of an era.

So long and thank you, WoW Radio.

If you, dear reader, are not listening to WoW Radio, here's what you should be downloading right now:


Blue Plz!

Winner of Larisa's "Best Podcast" award for 2009, and my favorite podcast ever, Blue Plz! is not to be missed. Snarky solo host Totalbiscuit brings his homebrewed combo of British wit and belligerence to bear on the most controversial WoW topics of the day . . . and if there isn't a topic of the day, he'll make up some controversy on the spot! He's intelligent, opinionated, and always entertaining, and he's not letting the over-entitled get away with anything.

Except . . . TB . . . please stop it with the "singing".


Casually Hardcore

Much more generally inviting, but only slightly less entertaining, is Casually Hardcore. It's hosted by a team of older gamers (in their 30s) who talk about trying to fit WoW gaming into their busy lives around their children ("Nemesis" can often be heard interrupting the show to ask his parents for a juice box), jobs, and other hobbies, but it's by no means dry. Hosts Gnomewise, Iolite, Gwenora, Daksa, and Grail (a nice mix of 3 men and 2 women) imbue the show with constant levity and humor, and most of the meat of the show is about relaying and digesting WoW news to help the casual player keep up with what is going on and actually make sense of it. They definitely showcase what it means to be "casual" without any of the negative connotations that word sometimes gets.


Octale & Hordak vs. The World

You are the world, and they are versus you! Often imitated, never duplicated, and sometimes eviscerated, hosts Octale and Hordak - along with their 3rd wheel Doc Dead - are smart guys with a great sense of humor. Though the show rarely discusses WoW anymore, instead focusing on other developments in the wider world of gaming, it's non-stop entertainment. Their use of "drop-ins" (a common radio trick of using audio clips they can play at the push of a button) is especially enjoyable.


the rest

The three I've already listed are at the top of my weekly podcast listening list, but that doesn't mean that the rest of WoW Radio's offerings are any worse. For more Totalbiscuit, listen to his general gaming show called "Gaming the System". Natural20 provides great guides to WoW class mechanics in "Just Plain Better", which I'd highly recommend to anyone who wants to better understand their class. General gaming show "Maxspeed" is also entertaining (if a little bit more on the juvenile side) and "But Wait, There's Lore" is great for people who care about - you guessed it - lore.


So if you are interested enough in WoW to be reading this blog, I highly recommend you check out the shows on WoW Radio, and follow them as they go their separate ways. It is a sad day to see an institution in the community go, but I can't be too sad when the podcasts are still going to be there.

And finally, I want to offer a heartfelt "thank you" to WoW Radio for all of the hours of entertainment you've provided for me. Keep it up.


*Check out Brewguy, especially "The Ganker", and Fatty, especially "Nerdcore".

Blizzard Poons Me, RE: Occulus

To oversimplify, Occulus is riskier than other heroics. And one way to balance that risk (which I was going to suggest in my series of posts on the dungeon, which may or may not see the light of day now) is to offer better rewards.

Blizzard is incentivizing Occulus, and doing it pretty well:

To encourage players not to shy away from the many invigorating adventures to be had in The Oculus, we have applied a change to enhance the rewards players are provided when selected for this dungeon via the Random Heroic option in the Dungeon Finder. Once Ley-Guardian Eregos is defeated, one loot bag per character will be provided in his chest in addition to the current rewards. Each loot bag will offer players rare gems, two additional Emblems of Triumph, and a chance of being rewarded the Reins of the Blue Drake. These fine treasures could be yours should you honor your fellow party members by besting the challenges contained within The Oculus! Keep in mind, however, that these extra loot bags will only be awarded to each party member if Oculus is selected by the Dungeon Finder when players choose the Random Heroic option.

In light of this change, the Reins of the Azure Drake will now have a chance of dropping in both 10- and 25-player versions of The Eye of Eternity.

So clearing Occulus will now give you extra emblems, gems (hopefully epic rather than blue, remains to be seen) and a chance at a rare mount. Neat!

LFG [of jerks], or: Why I Hate the Dungeon Finder Now

Remember how, only a few days ago, I praised the new LFG system in WoW?

I'm here now to tell you that I was a bit premature. All is not sugarplums, roses, and nude models.

The bottom line is something that we all already knew: people are assholes.

The core problem with the dungeon finder is also its core value proposition: it allows you to spend more time in random groups. Not only that, but it cycles you through those groups much more quickly, and pulls those groups from a larger pool of people. Add in the fact that most of those people are from another server and will never see you again, and you have the perfect recipe for a highly concentrated example of John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. I'm far from the first person to point out this downside of the system.

Being exposed to more people at a more rapid clip for longer periods of time means 1) you are spending more time with assholes, 2) you are seeing more different kinds of assholes (and remember, each asshole only has to be an asshole once), and 3) you are increasing the number of terrible pug experiences you can have per hour.

After the first day, people started to learn how to game the system and they started to figure out that they could bring their undergeared alts to everything, and other players wouldn't have much choice but to carry them (because of the penalties for leaving and the vote-kick timer, which I'll get into later). So over the past few days, almost every group I join has two people doing 1.5k or less dps (below the tank). Out of the dozens of groups I ran this weekend, only 3 were reasonably pleasant and competent. I had no idea before just how shitty WoW's community actually is. I'm not sure I want to keep playing a game that includes so many people who are just wastes of breath and Fritos.

Why does this food taste like asshole?

My stand-out bad experiences: a hunter joins heroic OK and proceeds to do 600 dps. When asked why, he says that he started the instance with his crossbow skill at 1, and he didn't bring any other weapons. He says he "could care less" about how rude, inconsiderate, and unfair that is to the group.

Or how about this: I join H Occ on my super-geared main. I see 4 people from the same guild on another server are my group, and they have decent gearscores. So I compliment them, saying "it's nice to see a geared group, so many of my groups lately have had sub 1k dps". We go through the run, and get to a part when we are about to land on a floating platform. Everyone gets into landing position, and the mage actually dismounts, so I think it's OK to land. After the mage dismounts, the tank and healer go off alone, still on their drakes, to kill a random drake nearby. The tank gets killed. On an unnecessary drake that hadn't even seen us. At the same time, the mage runs forward and aggros the pack. I assume we are dead, so I run around in circles waiting for the wipe.

After we wipe, the group starts screaming at me about how I should have gone into frost presence and prevented the wipe (without the healer, mind you), and says I'm a terrible player. I tried to defuse the situation and be classy, but they wouldn't have it. They kept flinging insults, even though they had actually just wiped in a 5 man as a group from the same guild, despite their raid gear. They must have been so embarrassed to fail like that in front of me that they had to blame me. It was pathetic. I just let it go, and just kept running the instance, because I didn't really care about what random internet idiot said. But then we kill the 3rd boss and are flying up to engage the last boss, and they vote to kick me out of nowhere so I can't get my frost emblems. Classy.


But that's not even the worst part of the dungeon finder. The worst is the number of people showing up with quest greens or empty gem slots (not even getting into the lack of enchants). Please, please, please have the consideration to at least put a green gem in there before you queue up for a heroic. Remember that your group is made up of other people whose time is valuable, and you do not have a right to waste their time. You are not entitled to be carried, and they are not "bad people" if they don't want to pick up your slack.


THe LFG system is shaping up to be a way to yoke geared, competent players and pressure them to carry crappy, undergeared, inconsiderate players (presumably so that those baddies continue to pay a monthly fee instead of quitting because they can't get a group that will keep them). More on that later, with a great quote from Comrade Ghostcrawler. Sure, no one is "forcing" you, but if your a good player who doesn't use the system, you are screwed out of a ton of frost emblems that the terribads are getting. You are punished for not putting yourself at the mercy of the system. I can't wait until good players don't need frost emblems anymore and the LFG system becomes a cesspit of bads all expecting each other to carry them to phat epix. Mmm, community!

Pictured: good players (left), morons, slackers, and assholes (top center)

The rapid-fire cycling of assholes would, in itself, probably be bearable if it weren't for the ruleset that comes along with the system. I understand why Blizzard used the rules they did, but I think, in light of live-server conditions, they need to be revised.

As it stands, if you join a group and someone is immediately an asshole, you have two options: 1) continue the run, or 2) leave, incurring a 15-minute wait until you may queue again. You may not vote to kick someone until 15 minutes into the run.

Think about that for a second. If you are a perfectly nice and capable person, you join a run, and someone in that run is immediately an asshole, you are the only one who is punished. You can't kick him, but if you leave, you have to wait 15 minutes before you can even queue again, while the asshole can just let someone else fill your spot. The asshole gets the run he wanted with almost no interruption, but you have to pay 15 minutes of your life (plus queue wait time, if you are a dps) because you weren't willing to let him impose his assholishness on you.

Great thinking, Blizz.

Now let's say the assholishness only emerges later in the run. Now you can vote kick the guy. However, even if you do kick him, he does not incur a deserter debuff. So he can requeue right away and have almost no interruption in his ability to punish others with his presence.

Awesome.


I think Blizzard's current rules could be vastly improved:


1) Allow vote-to-kick from the beginning.

If I join a group, and the first thing out of the rogue's mouth is "lol you fags are gay", I should be able to kick him. I should not have to leave the group and be punished with a 15-minute wait to requeue.

The 15-minute grave period before you can vote-kick is especially onerous to me given Ghostcrawler's rationale for why it is in place (emphasis mine, of course):


"I suspect it's going to take a few tries before we get the vote kick thing feeling right. I hope it's obvious what purpose it serves though. We feared without some kind of grace period that a common behavior would be to automatically kick someone in greens or without certain achievements or perhaps even someone who would roll against you on stuff (in the partial premade situation)."




The reason you can't kick someone immediately is that - dear god, let me clutch my pearls - you might kick someone for being in greens!?!? Screw. You. It is not my obligation to carry slackers, no matter how important it is to you to keep their subscription money coming.

Aside from that outrage, the benefits of being able to immediately kick "Bustanutz" vastly outweigh the risk that we might dare to kick someone who is undergeared for the instance. Get your priorities straight, GC!


2) No deserter debuff if you leave the group in the first 2 minutes.

This way, you aren't stuck with the choice between running the dungeon with assholes or punishing yourself with a 15 minute wait while the assholes get to fill your spot instantly and keep running.


3) Apply a fresh deserter debuff if you are vote-kicked. To prevent griefing, allow a group to only vote-kick one person every 15 minutes.

You should not be able to requeue immediately after being vote-kicked.


4) Do not let a player queue if they have even a single empty gem slot.

The system should give them back an error message explaining why they were not allowed to queue, as well. The system already uses a highly lenient gearscore measurement to prevent someone in full greens from entering your heroic. Simply add this on.


I believe these simple changes will go a long way toward giving the vast majority of us, who are pleasant, competent people, a way to deal with assholes that is more punishing to the assholes than it is to us. They will also greatly encourage good behavior and increase player satisfaction with the LFG experience, while having little to no negative effect.